| Why is my Body Falling Apart? |
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Every day in my office patient recite these words, “help, my body is falling apart!” Have you ever wondered why your body begins to fall apart and seems to do so at an alarming pace?
Often, one system begins to fail and this can trigger a cascade of disease that begins to wash away both health and quality of life. Here are a few reasons that your body begins to fall apart and more importantly these represent opportunities to begin recapturing your health. 1. Accumulated injury We live in a world that is subject to the second law of Thermodynamics that states that everything, including your body after age 20, is in a state of increasing disorder unless energy is expended to maintain the system. So what are the implications? Each day we are bombarded with potential threats to the health of our cells including the food we eat, excessive stress both physical and mental, toxins, and radiation. Once cells are damaged it is up to your body to begin repairing these cells but if the damage is excessive or your system is not healthy some of the cells are left unrepaired. Slowly over time the amount of damage accumulates, often without any symptoms until a tipping point is reached. This is the point when disease manifests in the form of symptoms and represents years of accumulated injury and damage. 2. Diet In the game of life diet is King. The food you eat is never neutral, it either promotes healthy cells and repairs damage or it causes cell injury, damage and disease. Over the past 100 years the average Western diet has gradually slid down the slippery slope of taste and pleasure and today is vastly different than that of our grandparents. For example, in 1900 the average person ate 5 lbs of sugar in a year, did not drink soda, ate 131 pounds of homegrown vegetables and consumed very little oil. Compare this to the year 2000 when the average person consumes 200lbs of sugar, 53 gallons of soda, 11 pounds of homegrown vegetables and 30 lbs of refined oils. The differences are staggering and highlight the dangerous state of the Western diet. 3. Activity Your body was built to move and movement actually promotes healthy cells and a healthy body. DNA is activated by movement and stimulates cell repair, regeneration, and healing. Inactivity creates an environment that leads to impaired healing, tissue degeneration, imbalance and disease in multiple systems. Once again modern society has changed the way we live and work and has created a sedentary culture. Today we try to find time in our schedule to exercise compared to our ancestors who looked to find times of physical rest. 4. Stress Stress has always been a part of the lives of humans through out the ages. Some forms of stress (Eustress) push us to improve such as exercise or education and other form of stress (Distress) insidiously damage your cells and accelerate the disease process. Living in a 24 hour 7 day a week culture creates unnatural stressors and often deprives us of opportunities to escape, release, and re-gather before moving forward. Dr. Hans Selye is the father of modern stress research and his studies proved that external mental and emotional stressors produce significant and potentially damaging effects on the body, especially when the stressors are applied over a long period of time. |
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